


ours are the hours (undefined)

by turnontheghostlight



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Polyamory, [banging fists on table] patbrijo! patbrijo! patbrijo!, rated for language, roadtrip au, yeehaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 03:32:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18513037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnontheghostlight/pseuds/turnontheghostlight
Summary: I looked at the sky and I just saw starsI looked at the road and I just saw carsI wonder where in the world [we] are tonightBrian is, as he often is, the catalyst of good things.





	ours are the hours (undefined)

**Author's Note:**

> [banging fists on the table] patbrijo! patbrijo! patbrijo!
> 
> yeah the idea for this popped into my head suddenly last week (i think? idk i have no concept of time whatsoever) and i could not rest until i wrote it. god has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished, and by hubris i mean my inability to be normal fuckin person [whips]
> 
> also, where's the third chapter of wisp on the set? hello? where is it? the answer is i don't know and i'm doing my best to find it too but who's to say when i'll find it
> 
> anyways, kudos+comments are greatly appreciated as always! enjoy :'))

By the end of the third day, Brian’s itching to do something stupid.

They’ve stopped at every shitty roadside attraction they’ve come across—dinosaur sculptures, statues of cryptids and monsters and bears fighting men, a gift shop specializing in gin—and Brian still wants more.

Which is characteristic of him if nothing else. From the very beginning of this he’s wanted more. It’s why Jonah and Pat are both here, why they’re going all the way to San Francisco instead of just to Colorado like they’d originally planned, why the melodica is sitting under the passenger seat when really, musically, Jonah’s guitar would have sufficed. But hey, with that face, when Brian asked, could they say no?

As it stands, though, Pat’s too tired and Jonah’s too sensible for them to really go off the rails. Brian manages.

“I’m pulling off- we’re going up there, no one argue with me,” he announces abruptly into the comfortable quiet, yanking the steering wheel to the right when he sees a sign indicating a scenic lookout off the highway. Pat starts awake in the passenger seat, and Jonah in the back yelps as the car jolts. Never mind that it’s midnight, apparently.

“Bri,” Jonah begins patiently, only to be aggressively shushed before he can get a second word in. Pat glances back at him with a sympathetic yet thoroughly amused smile—that _you know you can’t beat him and you know you don’t really mind_ look that’s become part of their everyday life with Brian.

So that’s how they end up parked at the top of this hill, despite the fact that it’s too dark to see the promised scenery. Pat is about to complain when he looks up, at a sky filled with more stars than he’d ever hoped to see, and promptly forgets what he was going to say.

Jonah pulls his guitar out from the back and joins Brian where he’s perched on the hood of the car. Pat leans up against the driver’s side door, folds his arms behind his head. Jonah plucks out a few notes, then glances at Brian with a querying smile. He’s illuminated dimly by the car’s interior lights, but it’s enough. Brian always seems to glow with his own light anyways.

The first chords of Clean Slated State are instantly recognizable, and makes something indescribable rise in a warm rush in Pat’s chest. “Oh my god, shut _up_ , you two.”

“Pat’s gonna cry,” Brian teases, but there’s no malice in it.

“Yeah, what of it,” Pat shoots back. Jonah, caught in the middle, chuckles lowly and strums a little more insistently. “ _Jonah_.”

“ _Turn on the ghost light_ ,” Brian croons with a pointed grin at Pat.

“I hate you guys,” he mutters, resigned to his fate. But of course, that doesn’t suffice, not for Brian.

“ _Mouth full of lines_ \- come on, sing with me, Pat.” He reaches out a hand, makes a grabbing motion at him. “ _I won’t fall_ \- stop being a tool, we all know you can sing-”

Jonah stretches his leg out and nudges Pat without faltering in the slightest on the guitar, smiling angelically when Pat grumbles. _Sing with him_ , he mouths.

“I thought you were on my side,” Pat stage-whispers, “come on, man.”

All he gets is a fully unapologetic shrug before Jonah turns his attention back to Brian, and justifiably so. Brian looks inexplicably ethereal, half his face bathed in soft yellow light, traced against a backdrop of stars, his eyes shut as he sings sweet and clear into empty space.

He cracks open an eye as if he can feel the gazes on him, knows how reverent they are. He meets Pat’s eyes and smiles somewhere in between _do you need someone_ and _do you need a new me_ , and—

Pat is so, so in love. Good god, he’s so hopelessly in love.

(Jonah makes a quiet choked-off sound and ducks his head when Brian lays his devilish, perfect gaze on him, too. It’s good to know Pat’s not alone in that regard.)

The sky’s filled with more stars than Pat had ever hoped to see, and Brian is impossibly radiant in the dark, and _ah, fuck it. Why the hell not_.

“ _Walk from the city_ ,” Pat joins in, and he hates how his voice croaks, but the way Brian’s entire face lights up makes it entirely worth it.

_New day to seize  
_ _The mist all condenses and drips from the trees_

Jonah plays with his whole being, like he always does. It’s beautiful in its own way, how his entire soul seems to be poured into the instrument; he grins, more like a side effect than a conscious action, as his chords sing out to the heavens. It’s no wonder Brian’s in love with him.

_I won’t fall_  
_No, I won’t fall  
Again_

Pat’s beginning to forget how much he hates the sound of his own voice. Brian slides off the hood of the car as he sings and walks around to the driver’s side, reaching up to cup Jonah’s face with one hand for just a moment as he passes him. He takes Pat’s hands in his— _do you have someone to walk home with?_ —and intertwines their fingers— _do you want someone, it’s getting late—_ and presses Pat’s knuckles to his lips.

_Do you need someone? Do you need a new me?  
_ _Cause I got two or three-_

“I love you,” Pat murmurs, missing the end of the line for it. Brian’s eyes crinkle up in that way they do when he smiles.

“ _My clean slated state_ ,” he hums into Pat’s skin. Jonah strums a resolving chord, then, instead of going into the next part of the song, and Brian whispers, “I love you too.”

“Aww,” Jonah coos as he sets his guitar aside, entirely genuine. Brian whips around and points.

“And I love _you_ too,” he declares, excessively loud.

Jonah just smiles. “I know, Bri. You don’t let me forget.”

Brian’s laugh rings like bells in the night.

  
  


Brian claims the shower first, when they finally stumble into a dingy motel room for the night. Pat immediately falls into bed without bothering to change out of his day clothes or pull the sheets out from where they’re tucked ridiculously tight under the mattress. He stares up at the a ceiling that has only a few water stains, which is a vast improvement from the past two nights, and lets out a long sigh.

There’s some shuffling, then the mattress dips as Jonah sits down gently on the edge of the bed. “Mind if I join you?”

“No, go ahead,” Pat says, shifting over to make room. Jonah promptly makes himself comfortable—also forgoing the comforter, but he has changed into a clean, soft-looking t-shirt and boxers, because he’s just more functional like that. He looks softer without his glasses, and his beard is just the slightest bit overgrown, and he looks good. Jonah always looks good.

“You look tired.” Jonah turns his head towards him, an eyebrow quirked but his eyes kind. Pat registers somewhere in the back of his head how close they are.

“To be fair, I kind of always do.”

Jonah laughs quietly. “I don’t blame you.”

Pat finishes the thought for him: “Brian sure is a lot, isn’t he?”

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Jonah mumbles. Pat hums in agreement as his gaze wanders back to tracing the water stains on the ceiling.

The faint sound of Brian singing in the shower bleeds through the wall. Pat feels rather than hears Jonah’s exhale.

Calloused fingertips brush over the back of Pat’s hand, feather-light, like they’re not sure if they’re allowed to be there. Pat turns his palm over on an instinct, an urge, and Jonah’s hand folds over his. It’s easy, feels like it’s what they’ve always done. Pat doesn’t look—he’s afraid that if he moves, this will shatter—but he doesn’t need to. This is enough.

When Brian emerges from the bathroom, hair still dripping, his towel slung over his shoulder, and sees them, he wastes no time in launching himself onto the bed, ignoring their protests as he smothers the two of them in kisses.

“Aw, you _guys_ ,” he all but squeals, “I love this—I love you both—”

Pat catches Jonah’s eye over Brian’s shoulder as Brian buries his damp face into Pat’s shirt; there’s a depth of fondness in the way Jonah looks at them that warms Pat to the core.

“The feeling is seconded,” Pat is saying before he even realizes. He knows from how Brian brightens that he picked up on the emphasis on the unspoken _both_.

Jonah rolls over, then, crowding Brian in between them. They both laugh at the indignant squawk Brian voices. The triumph is short-lived, however, as Brian raises himself up on his elbows and shakes his head vigorously, spraying them with water. Brian’s victorious crowing is so loud, it’ll be a wonder if they don’t get a noise complaint in the morning.

But for now, with a bed full of people Pat loves and the sky outside full of more stars than he’d ever hoped to see, it doesn’t matter.

Life is good.


End file.
